While challenge she gives the suitors is something Odysseus

While reading the epic The Odyssey by Homer, have you ever just stopped and reflected, mostly all of the main characters show some type of loyalty but out of them all who shows the most loyalty? In the epic loyalty is one of the main themes shown throughout the whole story. However the main character that shows the most loyalty is Penelope because she waited for Odysseus for 20 years to return home, she wouldn’t choose a suitor until she officially knew Odysseus was dead, and she also made the wait even longer, by making promises that she intended to keep.Penelope showed loyalty by not marrying anyone else unless she knew for sure that Odysseus died other than that she was going to wait for Odysseus to return home no matter how long it took him. In book 2 of The Odyssey, Penelope came up with a plan, since she is the queen it is expected for her to get remarried if Odysseus had died. Her plan was to delay having to marry one of these suitors, by doing that for three year Penelope said that she wouldn’t marry until she’d finished weaving a funeral shroud for Odysseus’s father, Laertes, so each day Penelope would weave all day, and then unraveled all her work at night. After, three years she was forced to finish the shroud, when she finished weaving the shroud Penelope gave the suitors a challenge to complete, which decides who her new husband is. However the challenge she gives the suitors is something Odysseus is only able of doing and is impossible for anyone else to complete . “It is not so much the marriage I grieve for … it is the thought, if this is true, that we come so far short of godlike Odysseus in strength, so that we cannot even string his bow”(21.250-25). The reason she picked a task that she know only Odysseus is able to do is because she knows that she won’t have to marry any of the suitors so she can stay with Odysseus which was one of the main ways she showed loyalty. In closing, Penelope was the most loyal main character to her husband Odysseus because she could’ve just chose not to wait for Odysseus to return but she didn’t she waited for him to come back , although she hadn’t heard a word from him since he left, also she could’ve married someone else but she didn’t instead she found anyway to stall and wait for Odysseus to come home. She spent every day finding ways to hold off a marriage to one of the suitors, her plans helped to further show the loyalty she had for Odysseus. She decided that the suitor who was able to string Odysseus’ bow and shoot it through a row of axes would be her new husband. This was another plan because she knew that this was something that only Odysseus would be able to do, this ensured that in the case that it was Odysseus, if he completed the task, also it ensured if it wasn’t Odysseus, she would continue to stall. Penelope’s loyalty was shown through the journey she goes on while waiting for Odysseus to come home. As a reward for being faithful, clever, and cautious, Penelope ends up happy in the end with her husband in her arms.